Now we need to see how we fallen, sinful, polluted, and contaminated human beings can become precious stones for God’s building. In order to become such precious stones, we first must be regenerated, born again. First Peter 1:3 says that we have been regenerated through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This indicates we have been identified with Christ, just as the eight persons in Noah’s family were identified with the ark. Because they were in the ark, they were one with the ark. Wherever the ark was, they were, and whatever the ark experienced, they experienced. The ark’s history was their biography; the ark’s life was their life. For us to be regenerated through the resurrection of Christ means that we are identified with Christ—we were put into Christ and are one with Christ.
Verse 23 tells us that we have been regenerated with an incorruptible seed, which is the living and abiding word of God. The word of God is the word of life. In regeneration the divine word of life comes into us as a seed of life. We now have this seed in us. We are each like a plot of soil. Soil can never produce a carnation flower if it does not have a carnation seed sown into it; it can be only a plot of soil. It can never be living, full of life, and full of beauty. No amount of teaching concerning what a proper plant should look like can ever cause a plot of soil to produce a plant. Many teachers, such as Confucius, have taught man for centuries how to be proper and virtuous, but this teaching has not worked. Nothing of life or beauty has come forth from all this teaching. Jesus came not to teach but to sow Himself as the seed of life into man. Matthew 13 clearly reveals that the Lord Jesus came as a sower to sow the seeds of life (vv. 3-8, 37). These seeds are the word of God, the Lord being in this word as life (vv. 19-23; Luke 8:11).
Peter was not naturally a wonderful person. It might have been that when he was young, he was a naughty boy. Nevertheless, when Peter came to the Lord, without Peter’s knowing it, the Lord sowed Himself into Peter. Then when the Lord resurrected, the seed within Peter germinated. After the Lord’s resurrection Peter became another person. He was no longer a naughty boy but a great apostle. Thus, he was able to stand on the day of Pentecost to subdue thousands. The old Peter could not have done that. However, the seed that had been sown into him three years earlier was in blossom on the day of Pentecost. We all have such a glorious seed within us that is growing and will blossom. In some it has begun to blossom already.
In order to become precious stones for God’s building, we also must drink the milk of the word so that we will grow. First Peter 2:2 says, “As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation.” Regardless of our age, we all need to be like newborn babes. Newborn babes do not know how to do anything other than to drink milk. Day and night they are drinking. As newborn babes, we should all have an appetite to drink the milk of the word. It is by drinking milk that newborn babes are able to grow. Likewise, we must drink the milk of the word in order that by it we may grow. We should come to the Bible not mainly for teachings but mainly to drink the milk, to take in the nourishment, that we may grow. The growth of a human being never comes from teaching. Growth comes from only one thing, that is, nourishment. Mothers know that in order for their children to grow, the children do not primarily need teaching. If children are given only teaching, they will become thin and unhealthy. However, if children are fed with much nourishing food, they will be happy and will grow.
In the local churches in the Lord’s recovery everyone has a pleasant, happy, and bright face. Several visitors have asked me, “What happened to these people?” Some have said to me, “When I went into one of your meetings, everyone was glowing. Did they all win valuable prizes?” There are no material prizes for the saints to win, but every morning they receive the prize of Christ. They receive Christ as their nourishment. Others have asked me, “Brother Lee, you are an old man. Why are you so happy every day? You are like a young man.” At times I have replied, “Please do not call me an old man. I am not old; I am young because of the nourishment I receive from the Word day by day.” I have been drinking the milk from the fountain of the Word for over fifty years. By now I am very familiar with this fountain. Many times even when I am not looking at the physical Bible, I am still drinking. After I speak a message, my wife is often surprised and says to me, “I did not see you open the Bible once this week. Where did such a wonderful message come from?” I answer, “I open the Bible within me a hundred times a day.” Others do not see this, but the Lord as the Spirit with my spirit sees it. When I am drinking from the inner fountain, the Lord Jesus is always happy, and I am therefore happy as well.
The milk we drink makes us grow. Eventually, by this growth we become different persons. By the growth of a carnation seed, a blossoming carnation flower is produced. Outwardly, I am a Chinese man, but within me something is blossoming; something is living. When we see one another, we should not look at the earthen vessel but at the blossoming Christ.
Moreover, this growth issues in building. The more we drink the milk of the word, the more we will desire to contact the saints. This is my experience. Today I find that without the dear brothers, I simply cannot live. The more we grow, the more we desire to be one with the saints. This is building.
The building of the church is not carried out by organization or by a disorderly “piling up”; it is entirely a matter of organic growth. The members of our physical body were not systematically organized, nor were they merely put together without any particular order. Rather, they have grown together organically. It is for this reason that our body cannot be divided. Likewise, the proper church life in the Lord’s recovery is not something organized or piled up but something that grows up. It is absolutely different from Christianity or any kind of religion. It is the growth of Christ corporately. The Lord desires that the church be built up not by teaching but by the nourishment of the milk and the solid food in the word (1 Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:12-14).